Pugliese on PR: Choosing your media
By Tina L. Pugliese, APR, Pugliese Public Relations
Be clear about which media you want to target in order to reach your audience. This will help you decide what kind of a campaign to have, and which tools you will need to use.
How you define your audience will depend on your geography and on your community. Media in small communities cover the news in a completely different way than in the city. In general, small town media cover local events and news and will therefore be more accessible to you. Getting media attention will be harder in big cities, where local news tends to be underplayed.
It is hard work to get your message out. It takes time and energy and resources. Some might argue that it takes time, energy and resources away from the important work of your organization. But media relations are an important part of your work, and they will pay off for you.
Working to build your own media profile is part of building support for your work and projects within the community. It is also a chance to develop a profile for a specific project, to strengthen your reputation and to encourage positive change at the community level.
The media’s mission is to provide information that interests their audience. Your challenge is to communicate the details to reporters in a way that translates easily into news story. Sometimes you have to create a story as much as tell it. This is known as messaging. If you create interesting stories with clear messages, the media will report them.
Show the personal, human side of your story. How does it affect the lives of people in your community? What are these people’s stories? Speaking personally and from the heart is the best way to get a reporter’s interest. Reporters, like everyone else, are interested in personal experience. Share personal and colorful anecdotes and examples that show how real people benefit from what you are doing.
It may appear that media outlets are impenetrable. But getting your stories in the newspaper, in online outlets or on TV means connecting with the people — the live, human beings working under deadlines — who populate the newsrooms of our country.
Tina L. Pugliese, APR is an executive coach and counselor for Pugliese Public Relations, a communications firm in Boynton Beach, Florida. Pugliese is an accredited member of the Public Relations Society of America, and is the author of the book, Public Relations for Pharmacists, and e-books, Marketing Your Business for Success, How To Work With The Media, Public Relations Manual — A Guide for Entrepreneurs and the PR Survival Kit. She can be reached at (561) 889-3575 and by email at Tina@PugliesePR.com. Her web site is www.PugliesePR.com.
Article excerpted from e-book, PR Survival Kit, by Tina L. Pugliese, APR.
.
